1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of board games. More specifically, the invention relates to board games used to teach business management skills. More particularly, the invention is related to games used to teach project management skills
2. Description of the Related Art
Board games have been used to teach various types of management skills, including business management and management of personal finances. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,737,167 issued to Kelley describes using a board game to teach personal decision-making skills. U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,682 issued to Braude describes using another board game to teach property investment management skills. U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,628 describes a board game used to train bank personnel. Still other games, such as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,386,778 issued to Hall, U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,792 issued to Anderson, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,456,473 issued to Whitney are used to teach various aspects of the construction business.
Management skills teaching and business strategy teaching games are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,354,684 issued to McKinley, U.S. Pat. No. 4,289,313 issued to Delamontagne, U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,135 issued to Campbell, U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,035 issued to Medina, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,878 issued to Kiyosaki et al.
Although many different aspects of management skills teaching are covered by games known in the art, a particular set of management skills is not directly addressed by management teaching games known in the art. Specifically, prior art management teaching games do not provide the players with the ability to make outcome-affecting decisions which are affected by risk, and more particularly how risk identification and mitigation can affect the overall value of a project. Broadly and generally defined, project management is the art (and/or science) of optimizing the scheduling and optimizing the allocation of physical and personnel (labor) resources to complete a complex task set. The object of the complex task set can be, for example, a construction project such as building new homes, commercial buildings or public roadways, or can be the development of a new product line for a company engaged in the business of selling products. Whatever the type of project, the most beneficial management of a project is generally believed to be that which causes the project to create the most value for the entities which invest in the project. Value is not strictly limited to return on invested capital, although it is an important measure, but may include numerous other characteristics such as numbers of customers, market share for a product, numbers of users, traffic congestion relieved (such as for public roadway projects).
It is desirable to have a game which teaches project management skills, and more particularly, teaches such project management skills in a way which trains the project participants to work on a project so as create the most value consistent with other project requirements. It is also desirable to have a game which teaches project management skills in a manner which accounts for real-world risk of task failure, and teaches the participants to deal with costs and benefits of identifying and mitigating risk.